Movie Type: Paranoid Thriller, Psychological Thriller
Themes: Suburban Dysfunction
Main Cast: Kyle MacLachlan, Elisabeth Shue, Dermot Mulroney, Richard T. Jones, Michael Rooker
Release Year: 1996
Country: US
Run Time: 96 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
The film's opening sequence takes the audience inside a mall, where a series of minor slights among strangers leads to an inexorable tension. Eventually, the focus settles on the main characters of The Trigger Effect, Matthew (Kyle MacLachlan) and his wife Annie (Elisabeth Shue). When a massive power failure hits their calm suburban California town, things begin to break down. Unable to fill a prescription for their sick baby because the phones and computers are out, Matthew tries to reason with the pharmacist, who responds testily. Desperation drives him to sneak behind the counter when the pharmacist isn't looking and steal the antibiotic the baby needs. Annie is strangely titillated when she hears about it. Later that day, their friend Joe (Dermot Mulroney) shows up at their house. Joe is a much more rugged individual than Matthew. While his presence during the crisis is welcome, Matthew resents Joe, while Annie feels drawn to him. Joe convinces Matthew to buy a gun, over Annie's objections. Joe's presence heightens the problems of their already struggling marriage. After a night of drinking and triangular tension, a burglar breaks into their home, leading to a fatal shooting. The next morning, the fearful couple, short on cash and gasoline, decide to travel to their in-laws until the power comes back on, and Joe agrees to go along. But the trip turns harrowing when they meet a desperate fellow traveler (Michael Rooker) on the road. Screenwriter David Koepp (Jurassic Park, Spider-Man) made his feature directorial debut with The Trigger Effect. The premise for the film was inspired by the BBC documentary series Connections. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
Review
Screenwriter David Koepp (The Panic Room) did a tremendous job in bringing his directorial debut, The Trigger Effect, to the screen. Even in blockbusters like Jurassic Park, Koepp has always found a way to mix ideas and strong characterizations with suspense and action. The Trigger Effect was inspired by a BBC documentary series, Connections, and while it's nearly as unrelenting in its tension, it also makes salient points about society's tenuous grasp on civilization. There's already something menacing in the air in the first ten minutes of the film. The camera traverses a shopping mall, showing a series of strangers as they literally bump against one another. This bravura sequence cleverly ends in a movie theater, where Matthew (Kyle MacLachlan) and Annie (Elisabeth Shue) are disturbed by the loud conversation of two young black men sitting behind them. Koepp has the courage to handle this racial tension honestly, and later in the film, he trenchantly turns the main characters' (and the audience's) racial presumptions on their head. A massive blackout heightens every bad feeling, from disputes between neighbors, to marital discord, to racial and class tensions, and Koepp examines all of these in the context of a compelling drama. The film never matches the genius of its opening, but there are flashes of brilliance, and some memorable characters, including an unscrupulous gun shop owner (Richard Schiff) and a desperate drifter (Michael Rooker). As the violence and chaos spread, Koepp cleverly captures the breakdown of the couple's sheltered existence when Matthew asks a cop who's come to his neighborhood after a shooting, "Is it bad out there?" and the cop responds, "Out where?" The Trigger Effect will let down some viewers with its ambiguous and somewhat abrupt ending, but overall, it's a thoughtful and genuinely unsettling film. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
Bill Smitrovich - Steph; Gary Bayer; Shishir Kurup; Molly Morgan; Richard Schiff - Gun Shop Clerk; Greg Grunberg - Boyfriend; William Lucking - Pharmacist; Eddi Wilde - Trendy Guy
Credit
Jeff Knipp - Art Director, Nancy Nayor - Casting, Dana Allyson - Costume Designer, Fernando Altschul - First Assistant Director, David Koepp - Director, Jill Savitt - Editor, Jerry Molen - Executive Producer, Gerald R. Molen - Executive Producer, Walter Parkes - Executive Producer, Laurie MacDonald - Executive Producer, James Newton Howard - Composer (Music Score), James Newton Howard - Songwriter, Howard Cummings - Production Designer, Newton Thomas Sigel - Cinematographer, Michael Grillo - Producer, Lori Rowbotham - Set Designer, Larry Dias - Set Designer, John Pritchett - Sound/Sound Designer, David Koepp - Screenwriter, Tom Perry - Re-Recording Mixer
The story starts off with a young married couple, Annie and Matthew, played by Elizabeth Shue and Kyle MacLachlan, returning home from the movies to find their infant child (being cared for by a babysitter) screaming with a high temperature and an ear ache. The father calls the doctor, who promises to phone in a prescription to the pharmacist the following day.
During the night the neighborhood wakes up due to a blackout. The baby is still ill. The father goes to the pharmacist the next day, but is unable to get the required medicine due to the blackout preventing the doctor from phoning in the prescription. The father then steals the medicine when the pharmacist is not looking.
Chaos ensues due to the blackout, so the father and his brother, Joe, played by Dermot Mulroney, decide to buy a gun. An intruder breaks into the couple's house during the night, and the two brothers manage to chase him out of the house, where the neighbor shoots the intruder. The neighbors then conspire to cover up the fact that the deceased intruder did not actually have a gun.
More chaos occurs, so the family and the brother decide to flee to the wife's parent's house. They do not have enough fuel to travel the whole way, so they stop by an abandoned car hoping to siphon some. A man is lying in the backseat. Joe notices that the man has a hand gun, so heads back to the car to get the shotgun. Joe aims the rifle at the man to try and scare him off, but the man shoots him and steals the car.
Matthew then heads off to a nearby farmhouse to try to get help for his family. The man occupying the house refuses to help him initially, as he does not trust him. Matthew collects the shotgun and returns to the house, hoping to steal the car. Matthew breaks into the house to get the car keys, and a stand off ensues between him and the owner. The owner eventually agrees to help Matthew. The owner and his young daughter drive for help.
The movie then suddenly ends, as order is restored.
Trivia
The story is partly inspired by the The Twilight Zone (1959) episode "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street", which depicts the denizens of the street slowly going insane after a power failure. In fact, in the film's production notes, Matthew and Annie live on the corner of Maple and Willoughby (another Twilight Zone episode, "A Stop at Willoughby"), allusions to The Twilight Zone.
Additional inspiration for the film was drawn from an episode of historian James Burke's series Connections. An episode entitled "The Trigger Effect" dealt with the ways in which societies become increasingly dependent on their technology, and vulnerable to collapse when that technology fails.
...Any one of a million things could fail and cause our complex civilization to collapse for an hour, for a day, or however long. That's when you find out the extent to which you are reliant on technology and don't even know it. That's when you see that it's so interdependent, that if you take one thing away, the whole thing falls down and leaves you with nothing.
